


Oh What A Night

by thesignsofserbia



Category: Sherlock (TV)
Genre: Anal Sex, Communication Failure, Drinking, Lestrade Saves The Day, Lestrade knows exactly what he's doing, London, M/M, Mary is long gone, POV Sherlock Holmes, Pining Sherlock, Post-His Last Vow, Post-Series, Resolved Sexual Tension, Sherlock Holmes and London, Sherlock Holmes and Relationships, Unrequited Love, alcohol lowers inhibitions, post case celebrations, self hatred
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-05-27
Updated: 2015-05-27
Packaged: 2018-04-01 13:23:05
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,050
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4021432
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/thesignsofserbia/pseuds/thesignsofserbia
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>He’d known it was a bad idea from the start, he should have stopped him and he should never have let it get this far. Later he wouldn’t be able to go back and say ‘I should have known’, because he had been well aware of the situation and its consequences. </p><p>But he’d reached the limit of his self-control, Sherlock Holmes’ iron willpower crumbling with this final demolition charge. Because the truth was; He didn’t want John to stop.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Oh What A Night

**Author's Note:**

  * Translation into Español available: [Oh, qué noche](https://archiveofourown.org/works/4226448) by [lasobrina](https://archiveofourown.org/users/lasobrina/pseuds/lasobrina)



 

 

 

He’s feeling particularly satisfied with this one, it was an 8 at least and he’d been on sparkling form even for him, solving it relatively quickly in the end, but the tiny details and complexities were what made it. The case had been a real challenge and had come not a moment too soon, he hadn’t had something this good to sink his teeth into in _ages_. He’d watched Scotland Yard tie themselves in knots trying to keep up with him and just when the case was reaching the climax; the suspects ran.

  
How he _loves_ it when they run.

  
They always seem to think that they can evade him, conceal themselves in the muck, the bowels of the city. Fools, Jefferson Hope had noticed; Sherlock knows every street, every alley, every underground carpark, every roof top and every fire escape. He has the river, the pavements, the parks, the bridges, the train lines and even the sewer tunnel system, with all its intricacies and amalgamations of history, burnt onto the backs of his eyelids, the flight paths too. He has the address of every major landmark and listed building on recall-speed-dial, he is constantly kept apprised of every construction site and road work, he has information on every drug den, safe house, brothel, and crime syndicate in London Proper tucked safely away inside his mind palace.

  
Absence does indeed make the heart grow fonder and he’d set aside weeks to get to know her again upon his return, exploring this great, ever-changing city anew. He allowed himself to observe without prejudice, assuming nothing of his prior knowledge and just immersing himself in its turbulence. He took it in all over again from scratch, absorbing every shred of knowledge hungrily and it’s a breath of fresh air, he knows more about London now than he ever had.

  
Nothing escapes him in His City, and there’s no street that they can run down where he won’t follow and no hiding spot where he can’t find them, not here. Not for anyone. He will never lose a game on home soil again.

  
It’s like watching rats in a maze to him and he stays with them in pursuit, right on their heels. He inevitably wins, cuts them off, corners them or depletes their stamina, it’s the same outcome every time but it’s not dull. He enjoys the thrill of the chase, and; so does John.

  
Even Lestrade and his minions are in high spirits following the arrest, as they always are after he’d solved them a big one (when it concerned neither children nor sexual deviancy, because apparently social constructs forbade celebration of victory, even when the results were an astounding success).

  
John is slightly out of breath, but he’s beaming and has that spark in his eyes that Sherlock loves because it means that John feels truly _alive_. This is what he lives for, what drives Sherlock, he feels unstoppable with the endorphins of a good case pumping through him, positively electrified by the stimulation and rush of adventure, especially when John is looking at him like Sherlock is the best thing that ever happened to him.

  
Instead of being arguably the worst.

  
Lestrade comes up with a big grin and slaps him on the back like a proud father as he jubilantly invites John and Sherlock to go out for a pint, as he always does. Lestrade just asks to be polite, he’s really only directing it at John, which is ridiculous, he knows Sherlock doesn’t give a damn about pleasantries, he’s told him many times; _‘You don’t want me there and I don’t want to be there. So why do you continue to ask?’_  
  


But Lestrade really means it this time, he actually wants Sherlock to be there, so Sherlock reluctantly agrees.

   
~

   
At first it is awkward and he doesn’t know what to do in this situation. The last time he’d been in a bar when he wasn’t working was on John’s stag night and it takes a while to shake this association; two pints, anxiously monitoring John from the corner of his eye. Clearly Sherlock’s presence in this setting isn’t rousing memories that would best stay away because John is oblivious, which must be nice. Sherlock relaxes. The stag night discounted, the last time would have been in university or just after and that was probably a club, he’d never liked bars…or people really. He didn’t like beer very much either, come to think of it. Why was he here again?

  
He feels a bit moody and John and Lestrade _(‘For god’s sake, Sherlock, call me Greg’_ ) make fun of him a bit for being out of his element, but they’re both enjoying themselves and _Greg_ declares more than once how ‘chuffed’ he is that Sherlock came, so he stays put. And for lack of anything better to do, he matches them drink for drink.

  
When it is social custom for him to buy a ‘round’, a woman starts talking to him as he waits at the bar. He wishes she wouldn’t bother and hopes that the problem will just go away on its own, so he filters her out almost entirely. He’s impatient, the barman is being maddeningly slow, maybe because he’s still exhausted from working his thankless day job as a high school teacher, but more likely because he’s been sampling his wares.

  
A voice, apparently directed towards him, lowers in pitch (indication of sexual attraction… or an impending smack in the mouth) and raises in volume pointedly, dragging his attention from the geriatric bartender, had he been talking to someone?

  
He turns to the woman next to him as an afterthought to ask what she wants, but she steps right into his personal space out of the blue, winding an arm around his waist ‘seductively’. He stares at her, affronted at the sudden intrusion after not having listened to a word she may or may not have said.

  
A beat passes.

  
Why is she still touching him?

  
The vacuum that is his interest is undoubtedly now clear to her as she recoils, and merges back into the noisy blur that is the other patrons.

  
Grateful for her discrete and better yet, rapid exit, he collects their drinks and hastily removes himself from the crowd. He sinks back down into the booth with a relieved sigh he takes a victory sip of his beer for his escape…and then stills, because both of them are silent, Lestrade is looking unsurprised and extremely pleased with himself and John is looking appalled. He swallows deliberately, eyes flicking between them,

  
“What? What is it? What have I done?”

  
John continues to gape at him before sharing a knowing look with Lestrade, god, so this was like it was on the receiving end of ‘The Face’.

  
“ _What_ , damn it?”

  
“That…erm, that girl you were talking to?” John prompted and his face is doing the same thing it does when Sherlock declines large amounts of money from clients.

  
Girl? What girl? They’re still staring at him, even Lestrade looking dismayed that he didn’t know who they meant. He hadn’t spoken to anyone…oh. Oh, did he mean the woman making noise at him at the bar?

  
“What about her? Was she someone I should know?” He spun around to try and catch a glimpse of her, but concluded that he didn’t know her. He never forgot a face so perhaps she was some celebrity or whatever.

  
Lestrade starts laughing heartily and John just waves it off instead of explaining, which would have infuriated him to no end ordinarily and he’d never have let it drop, but he’s feeling pleasantly buzzed so he decides he doesn’t care.

  
Slowly he begins to enjoy himself and he deduces the brand of underwear of everyone in the bar, except one, until neither John nor the D.I. can sit up straight from laughing. John always surprises him by being more observant than most (especially when it is of absolutely no consequence) and doesn’t disappoint, noticing the last man;

  
“What about that bloke then, hmm? You missed ‘im, what pants is ‘e wearing?”

  
“No” Sherlock deduces, a self-satisfied smirk on his face as Lestrade inhales a good portion of his lager.

  
Sherlock surveys with interest Lestrade thrashing John at darts and he tries to assist his blogger by explaining how he could maximise the accuracy of the throw by keeping the shoulder as a fixed point, moving as fluidly as possible (you don’t want to rush the backward move) and focusing on the parabola of the dart’s desired course of flight. This didn’t seem to help John much at all, nor when he corrects the scoring (‘ _honestly Lestrade this is kindergarten level maths_ ’) so they challenge him to do better, a challenge which of course he accepts.

  
Darts is more difficult a game than it looks and Sherlock is dreadful. John and Lestrade (Greg) are gleeful and take the piss mercilessly, that is until Sherlock perseveres and starts winning. And he keeps winning, he’s not known for losing challenges. In his defense of his lethargic start, he’d never played before and really it had just been a matter of time before he’d perfected the motion, they should have known better than to bet against him.

  
Three drinks later and no one in the pub can beat him. John and …Greg have earned a considerable amount by _not_ betting against him.

  
A man whose existence alone may refute the theory of natural selection makes an unsavoury comment about John, prompting Sherlock to suggest that the man’s wife was going to be even more disinclined to sleep with him once she realised how much he’d lost gambling.

  
The imbecile takes a swing at Sherlock who just swiftly takes a step back and watches him fall on his face. You should never put all of your momentum behind one swing. Even 6 pints down Sherlock could have inflicted enough damage to put that oaf on the ICU ward in under 3 minutes if he’d wanted to.

  
Greg diplomatically decides they’ve had enough and they end the night on a high, 238 quid in surplus, though John doesn’t think they’ll welcome Sherlock back to that establishment, which sounds unreasonable.

  
Greg winks at him like he knows when Sherlock falls against John in the cab and declines a lift to the station, referencing something about an odd number of wheels…?

   
~

  
He’d known it was a bad idea from the start, he should have stopped him and he should never have let it get this far. Later he wouldn’t be able to go back and say ‘I should have known’, because he had been well aware of the situation and its consequences.

  
Sherlock had always been a more rational person than John, and as it turned out he was significantly the more sober of the two. Lestrade was never the brightest of people, but to call them lightweights the morning after John’s ill-fated stag night was harsh even for his dull standards, 8 drinks in 2 hours before that damned nurse even turned up at the flat with her nauseating case, it was no wonder he’d been sick. It had actually been fairly impressive. He’d spent 7 years shooting up heroin and ingesting as much cocaine as was physically possible, he could handle his liquor.  


He is certain that John will regret this in the morning, of that he has no doubt. But when John kissed him, he didn’t reason with him, Sherlock wasn’t logical and didn’t push him away. In fact he made no move to dissuade him at all. John was inebriated, so perhaps Sherlock had even taken advantage of him. He hadn’t stopped him, Bit Not Good.

  
But he’d reached the limit of his self-control, Sherlock Holmes’ iron willpower crumbling with this final demolition charge. He didn’t want John to stop.

  
He supposed he might be able to get away with blaming it on the alcohol, but it’s a fact that the aptly named ‘liquid courage’ can never really force you to do something that is severely out of character, it encourages you, it makes you bold but that is all. Alcohol lowers inhibitions; it incites overconfidence, encourages risk-taking behaviour, effects decisions and allows people to get caught up in the moment, suggestable, boisterous; excited. It has a _‘_ what the hell, why not’ effect that can be extremely damaging. Yes, being drunk may influence a person’s actions, causing them to do something that they wouldn’t normally (John right now being a perfect example of this), but it couldn’t induce a personality change or seize control of the mind, some drugs could, but not alcohol.

  
In Sherlock’s experience if a person cheats on a partner whilst under the influence, then they had either already entertained the thought (even if they wouldn’t admit to having considered it) when they were sober or they do not care about the partner enough for it to be an obstacle, their lust being strong enough in that instant, that it didn’t matter who it was. If a man truly loves his partner absolutely and would never hurt them when he was sober, then the idea wouldn’t even occur to him drunk, genuine moral standards are too deeply ingrained to be so easily bypassed.

  
It was common in DUI cases that the person responsible was found to have had previous knowledge of the fact that they had no other way to get home from the party/club/whatever and yet they drove there anyway; subconscious premeditated approval of the risk. Perhaps they were convinced of the superiority of their abilities to manoeuvre a vehicle at speed when they could barely stand up, holding an ‘it wouldn’t happen to me’ philosophy. Maybe they’d done it before successfully without killing someone and were relying on the argument of precedence, possibly they just didn’t care or, more likely; didn’t think at all. In the end it didn’t matter.

  
The misconception that one is not responsible for one’s actions after drinking actually can promote crime, because the offender believes that they are less likely to be held accountable for their actions. Yes alcohol does hold power over a person’s judgement, but only to an extent. The actions undertaken when one’s brain chemistry is altered by the consumption of liquor cannot be completely excused by the drink, no. The blame ultimately lies with the human element of the equation, every time.

  
He is fairly ‘sloshed’ as John would say, and others might be able to buy it as an excuse, but he would always know the truth; it made no difference how high his blood alcohol level was, for it alone could not have motivated Sherlock to have sex with John. It didn’t need to.

  
He just couldn’t help himself. Worse; he could have, and deliberately chose not to.

  
Sherlock actually fantasised about John fucking him quite regularly when masturbating and he always came hard, alone and still feeling hollow despite his own fingers. The idea alone of John dominating him and stuffing him full of his cock is enough to make him achingly hard.

  
They tumble in the door. John kissing him is the fulcrum moment where everything hangs in the balance… and he lets him, savouring the moment. Before he parts his lips to grant entrance, returning the kiss and they plummet past the point of no return.

  
It’s rough, it’s desperate and John is uncompromising, which Sherlock relishes. He yields to his new lover immediately, relinquishing all control as he allows the indulgence; he loses himself in John.

  
Sex with John is heated and he’s utterly debauched, it’s exhilarating as it snow-balls in intensity and he should have predicted that it’s more than a bit dangerous. John’s not holding anything back, and he wonders if that’s a first for him. John letting go like this is the purest and most beautiful thing he’s ever seen.

  
Then John pushes into him and everything else is white noise.

  
~

  
He can’t quite catch his breath, splayed out on the mess of sheets, it could have something to do with the fact that John has collapsed on top of him and Sherlock is currently taking all of his weight. He’s being crushed and John’s hair is forced up against Sherlock’s face and it’s tickling his nose uncomfortably, but he’s never felt more at peace.

  
He wasn’t a burden, his heaviness was the anchor that was harbouring him, and it’s odd that the sensation of John’s mass smothering him would elicit such a robust feeling of security.

  
Sherlock wishes he could remain this way forever, but he’s extremely aware that he has very little time to savour the moment before John realises what they’ve just done.

  
The alcohol had not incited him to sleep with John, but what it had done was eviscerating him emotionally, and lay his all his carefully secreted feelings out before him where he had to face them.

  
Sherlock winds his arms around John’s waist and torso, and holds him almost reverently. He would likely never get the opportunity again, John will leave.

  
But then he would have eventually left anyway, he’ll find a wife (hopefully one who isn’t an international assassin this time), settle down and have a normal life, doing normal things with normal people. They would have just slowly drifted apart all over again, so surely it was better this way; quicker rather drawn out, surely this was preferable?

  
John must have recovered from his post-orgasmic haze because he goes rigid with his newfound awareness and it’s the beginning of the end. He begins to pull away but Sherlock is suddenly not ready to let him go and he tightens his grip as a last resort, holding on as much as he is able; he may be wiry but he’s muscular.

  
“Don’t,” he breathes urgently, “Please, just don’t. Let me have this? Just for tonight…just…stay. Please John, please stay with me.”

  
It’s a mantra and he knows that he’s pleading and he hates himself for it, but John appeases him and allows Sherlock to envelop him.

  
Pure, overwhelming relief.

  
It would have been unbearable if John had left him there, if he’d been so repulsed that he immediately fled.

  
Sherlock is torn by contradictory emotions; trepidation that John will hate him, and the impending loss of his best friend contrasted by the swell of euphoria at feeling John so close, of imagining belonging to John and John to him, catching a tiny glimpse of what it might be like to be loved by this man. He never wants to forget this, in the morning, John may be gone and he may never see him again.

  
So Sherlock clings to the man he loves, he holds on for dear life. He attempts to burn every last element, notion and impression of this memory into his mind palace; preserving it forever. He injects its very essence, the vivid (visual, auditory, olfactory and tactile) details, onto the immense framed canvas adorning the drawing room of The East Wing.

  
This was John’s room.

  
He hadn’t decorated it this way and he hadn’t invited John in. John had picked the locks and made himself at home, with his friendship and his comfort. He’d metastasised; his emotions, his caring, his eccentricities seeping through the carpets into the stonework, undermining the foundations; benevolent in his malignance. John was now essential to structural integrity.

  
Without him, all would be lost.

  
_What had he done?_   
  


~

   
They’re sitting in the living room and there’s a timer in Sherlock’s head; counting down to the end.  
  


0:09

   
John knows that they had sex. Even if he hadn’t remembered, waking up minus his clothes in Sherlock’s bed _with Sherlock_ had been a bit of a giveaway. He now knows why many people dread ‘the morning after,’ because the atmosphere in the flat is oppressive with the weight of words left unspoken.  
  


0:05

  
What Sherlock doesn’t know is if John remembers Sherlock’s pleas for him to stay, he’s studiously ignored Sherlock since he made his bid for freedom, and Sherlock had opted to stare at the ceiling rather than watch him go.  


0:03

   
John clears his throat in preparation.  
  


0:02

  
This is it.

   
0:01

  
He’s still not prepared.

   
0:00

   
“You could delete it, and it’ll be like it never happened, yeah?”

  
Well, that wasn’t exactly how he’d expected this conversation to start, but at least they were facing the problem head on now like adults, that was something. It was better than _‘I’m moving out, have a nice life,_ ’ too.

  
“And if I don’t?”

  
“Sorry; what?”

  
Apparently this wasn’t going the way John expected it to either.

  
“What if I don’t want to erase it?”

  
John didn’t have an answer to this, but he looked like he was going to be sick, which Sherlock preferred to assume was a physiological response to his excessive blood alcohol concentration and not a  disgusted reaction to...anything else.

  
“I’m not a sociopath John.”

  
“I know,” John is frowning at him, “I never thought you were,” he sounds sad and a little bit insulted that Sherlock thought he’d believed it.

  
It was Sherlock’s turn to be taken aback, he hadn’t meant to be insulting, because the thing was; Sherlock _had_ believed it, he’d been convinced that it was true in fact, for the majority of his life.

  
It had been a label given to him by serious looking people before he’d even started primary school and it seemed to stick, once he was old enough he looked up what it meant and decided the definition was a fairly close fit, so he’d accepted it as fact, even outwardly encouraged people to be aware of it so they wouldn’t bother him. He wielded ‘high functioning sociopath’ like a shield and he’d have written it on his forehead if it’d been more practical.

  
Even the sociopath thing hadn’t put John off. No. In the end, it had just been him; he’d done that all on his own. Maybe that’s why he’d used it in the first place, a reason, an excuse for why everyone leaves.

  
“What has that got to do with…?”

  
“I don’t want to forget it,” he explains in a small voice, but with determination, “and I wouldn't take it back either.”

  
John is making this more difficult by being utterly lost, so he has to spell everything out. He’s hungover as well, the least John could do is keep up and get to the hating Sherlock part already, he’s only making it more painful by drawing it out.

  
“Molly was right,” he powers through; the faster he can get it out the sooner he can pretend it never happened, “I didn’t realise it, but she made me see.”

  
“See what?” John’s tired and the question is blunt, but his voice is gentle.

  
“What was right in front of me. That I…love you, desperately. Despite my best efforts not to.” That hurt more to admit than he’d thought it would, and sounded far more ridiculous out loud, he cringes away.

  
“Sherlock, I don’t know what to say.”

  
“Then don’t,” his voice is sharper than he intended, “Don't say anything. There’s nothing to be done about it, I apologise, and promise I’ll not do anything untoward, but I…I won’t delete it. Let’s move on from this and forget that this unfortunate conversation ever happened.”

  
John just gave a jerky nod in reply and that was the end of that.

  
…

  
Until 2 days later when John kisses him goodbye on his way to work and _means it;_ while he's one hundred percent sober. Turns out John is better at keeping things from him that he thought.

  
“Why didn’t you just tell me?!” John had waited two days to tell him, two agonising days in which Sherlock had thought he’d completely ruined the only meaningful relationship in his life.

  
“You told me not to, didn’t you?” That and John had probably known that Sherlock would never have believed him had he said it then, would have seen it as a cruel joke or an attempt to let him down easily.

  
“I hate you.”Sherlock grumbles.

  
John beams at him.

  
“I love you too, you git.”

 


End file.
